This story is the first of a four-part series featuring the 2023 A-State Hall of Honor inductees.
 
Candon Powell describes his senior season at Arkansas State in 2005 as a meteoric rise.
 
What began in early-season practice, paired with the knowledge that there would come a time where his worst day would be better than he was performing at that point, erupted into a season that ended with the highest finish by a thrower in program history at the NCAA Championships.
 
Powell placed fourth in the weight throw at the 2005 NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., tossing the implement 22.04m (72-3.75) – a school record that has remained since that day. Nearly 20 years later, the Arnold, Mo., native is set to be enshrined in the A-State Hall of Honor on Sept. 23, 2023, joining a star-studded list of Arkansas State track and field standouts that includes his coaches Jay Flanagan and David Rodely.
 
He amassed eight Sun Belt Conference titles, four each indoors and outdoors, while breaking school and conference records multiple times in the weight throw and hammer throw in his tenure from 2002-05.
 
While the statistics and championships remain, Powell stated that his inducted helped remind him that his career indeed was what he thought it to be.
 
"It is vindicating, to feel like all of the hard work and the blood, sweat and tears we put in so many years ago haven't been forgotten," he said. "It becomes a legacy and something I can tell my family. It's one of those things that, once time takes us all, we aren't forgotten. That's the coolest part - that I have a legacy that will now outlive me."
…
Powell's journey to Arkansas State actually began with a lost wager.
 
His track and field coach in high school made a bet with the young athlete that, if he did not make the baseball team, he had to join the track and field team as a thrower.  
 
Fast-forward to his senior year at Fox High School, the standout thrower was not high on recruiting boards, but his coach – the same one to whom he lost the bet – believed in his abilities and potential to be a collegiate thrower. Among the coaches he contacted was Rodely – a 2015 inductee into the Hall of Honor and throws coach at A-State at the time – who ended up taking a chance on the 6-5 standout and bringing him to Jonesboro.
 
Rodely and Flanagan provided a unique dichotomy as a coaching duo, which Powell described as a "yin and yang" approach. While Flanagan provided encouragement, Rodely had the ability to push Powell to his maximum potential, which was realized at that 2005 NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville. 

Seemingly every week during that indoor campaign, Powell was shattering school and conference records. After breaking the weight throw facility record at Southeast Missouri, he recorded the same mark at the Notre Dame-hosted Last Chance meet and wondered if that was the peak.
 
As it turned out, it was far from it.
 
"We went into the NCAA Championships trying to figure out how we can get more," Powell recalls. "Coach Rodely had this philosophy that, when you start making little improvements over and over again, eventually you're going to have that 'eureka' moment where everything just explodes and you find yourself at a whole other level. That's what happened at the NCAA Championships - exactly the way he predicted it would be."
 
As spectacular as Powell's career was, he is quick to attribute his success to many people believing in him – much like the track and field coach to whom he lost the bet.
 
"(My story) is not the same story everyone else has," Powell said. "It was a lot of people believing in me and finding opportunities for me. My success rests on the back of a lot of really good coaches from high school to college."